Local sonic artist, Anthony Artmann (instagram, soundcloud), hosts regular participatory drone meditations at Tempo Rubato and elsewhere. The booking page reads as follows:

One note. Infinite Possibilities.

Bring an instrument or just your voice.

We each pick a note and hold it / repeat for an hour. Together.

You are welcome to take rests throughout. You can also just come and listen if you prefer. It is a very peaceful experience.

All are welcome.

Registration fee: $10

Motive

Witnessing the slow tectonic shifts and subterranean flow - a deep listening sensibility facilitated by Artmann et al. a few weeks ago, was a quiet and beautiful revelation for me.

Artmann's practice opens a space in which the missing aesthetic register (the aesthetic register of the sacred), is strongly reinstantiated.

I was inspired and cobbled together a plan to build a distributed synthesis instrument to participate with at the next drone meditation.

Control

As discussed in my post on Web MIDI API, my current MIDI controller of choice is the nakedboards mc-24, which affords me 24 knobs, each capable of providing an integer value between 0-127.

With this in mind, I devised a system of eight parameters categories, each with three parameters:

Parameters

• Root
  • $note \in \N \cap [ 0, 127 ], midinote$
  • $finetune \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [ -1, 1 ], semitones$
  • $detune \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [ 0, 1 ], semitones$
• Harmonic
  • $numerator \in \N \cap [ 1, 12 ]$
  • $denominator \in \N \cap [ 1, 12 ]$
  • $unity \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [0, 1]$
• Tremolo
  • $depth / shape \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [ -1, 1 ]$
  • $speed \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [0.001, 16], Hz$
  • $diversity \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [0, 1]$
• Vibrato
  • $detune / depth \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [ -1, 1 ]$
  • $speed \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [0.001, 16], Hz$
  • $diversity \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [0, 1]$
• Timbre
  • $numerator \in \N \cap [ 1, 12 ]$
  • $denominator \in \N \cap [ 1, 12 ]$
  • $unity \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [0, 1]$
• LFO
  • $depth / shape \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [ -1, 1 ]$
  • $speed \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [0.001, 16], Hz$
  • $diversity \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [0, 1]$
• Reverb
  • $length \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [0, 1000], seconds$
  • $amount \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [0, 1]$
  • $diversity \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [0, 1]$
• Global
  • $volume \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [0, 1]$
  • $lag time \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [0, 1000], seconds$
  • $diversity \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [0, 1]$

... plus an additional, ninth category:

• Trill
  • $interval \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [0, 1]$
  • $speed \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [0.001, 16], Hz$
  • $diversity \in \mathbb{Q} \cap [0, 1]$

... which I envisioned could be swapped with Tremolo, in and out of the third parameter category slot, to give two mutually exclusive modes: tremolo mode, and trill mode.

Polyphony

In each of the parameter categories, the third parameter is designated to control a stochastic algorithm responsible for producing difference within that parameter category, across $n$ synthesis clients.

• detune, which offsets the root frequency of each synthesis client by a random amount within the specified range, the maximum being $\pm 1 semitone$
• diversity, which applies randomness to the parameter immediately above it in each case
• unity, which works to reduce the randomness of the two parameters immediately above it in each case

Roll Out

Image from Henrik Kniberg's blog post, Making sense of MVP.

Taking my Fresh mc-24 template as a starting point, the plan is to build in the operational capacities for each of the parameter categories in five stages:

Stage I	Stage II	Stage III	Stage IV	Stage V
Root	Harmonic	Tremolo	Timbre	Trill
Global	Reverb	Vibrato	LFO

~ ~ ~ UPDATE ~ ~ ~

Prototype:

You can find a live version of the synth client here

... and a live version of the control client here

Improvisation: